Economics, like Politics, makes strange bed fellows. It is surprising that opinions about the title of this essay have been propounded by both Adam Smith, who may be called the "Father of Capitalism" & William Morris, the committed Communist.
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| Adam Smith |
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| William Morris |
Adam Smith, the Scottish Economist, in his magnum opus "The Wealth of Nations", Book 2, Chapter 3, defines agriculture & industrial manufacture as productive work & most others as unproductive work. He, with his famous example of manufacture of pins, glorified division of Labour & mass manufacture. He also defined domestic service as socially un-productive labour, as it adds nothing to the wealth of either individuals or nations.
William Morris, Designer & Craftsman Extra ordinary, who learnt 13 extinct crafts, was a committed Communist & wrote an Utopian book called "News from Nowhere" depicting a pastoral, Communist England with a non industrial society. He, in his essay "Useful Work versus Useless Toil" also defines useful work as agriculture (& here comes the difference), handicrafts. He was against both division of Labour & mass production, as he felt that those reduced a happy usefully working human being into a soul-less slave.
We, at present separated by centuries from both these savants, can draw our own conclusions, as we have observed the effect of both these ideologies.
First is "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. Though it is the founding work of Capitalism, it is surprisingly humane & says that to serve our best interest, we should necessarily serve others' needs. So benevolence is the best way to serve our self-interest.
This tome is divided into five chapters.
1. Division of Labour (Specialisation)
2. Nature & Use of Capital
3. Different Wealth in different nations
4. Systems of Political Economy
5. Revenue of the Nations
Surprisingly, the book written in 1776, before the Industrial Revolution, remains in essence, as valid in the 21st Century as the most famous book on Economy.
The second book is Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." This was the first work to present an alternative view of creation to the Bible. Another unique point is the same idea occurred to Alfred Russel Wallace also. In 2015, it was voted by scholars as the most influential book on mankind.
This is divided into chapters like Sporting plants & blue pigeons, Drawing borders between species, The Struggle for Life, Survival of the fittest, The Horse's Stripes, Difficulties in this theory, Instinct, Rules & Mules, Reading the rocks, The Rise & Fall of Species, The Geography of Life, What living things share & This view of Life.
Though these works were written for the non-specialist, they are overly long with numerous examples, rendering them difficult of access to the present day reader, which is a pity. The purpose of the present write-up is to celebrate the advent of popular, condensed (& in the case of "Origin", illustrated) editions of these two classics, pointing out how relevant they are & bringing them to a wider readership.
